7 Home Health Nurse “Bad Habits” and How to Remedy Them

In the fast-paced environment of home health care, nurses are often juggling multiple responsibilities while striving to provide the highest level of care to their patients. Their role requires not only medical expertise but also the ability to work quickly and efficiently, especially when facing growing patient caseloads and more complex conditions. Under this type of pressure, it’s understandable that nurses might develop shortcuts or bad habits over time as a way to cope. These shortcuts, while often taken with the best intentions, can lead to unintended consequences that affect patient care and put agencies at risk for regulatory penalties.

Ensuring high-quality patient care is essential, and doing so starts with supporting the dedicated nurses who are on the front lines. It’s important to acknowledge the immense pressures that nurses face while also recognizing and addressing any patterns of behavior that might compromise care standards.

This isn’t about placing blame: Nurses are deeply committed to their patients and want nothing more than to deliver the best outcomes possible. However, without the right support and resources, the temptation to take shortcuts can arise, especially when time is scarce and demands are high.

To help prevent bad habits or shortcuts, agencies need to be proactive in creating an environment where nurses feel supported and valued. This means providing ongoing education and manageable caseloads while fostering a culture of open communication where nurses can voice concerns about working more quickly than they feel is safe. By doing so, agencies can help nurses maintain the high standards of care that patients deserve, avoid potential regulatory pitfalls, and ultimately create a more sustainable and positive working environment.

Let’s take a look at some common shortcuts that nurses are most likely to develop over time, along with our recommended remedy for each one.

1. Skipping Documentation Steps

Shortcut: Nurses might skip thorough documentation to save time, leading to incomplete patient records.

Remedy: MedBridge’s comprehensive documentation training modules and high-quality home health education help nurses understand the importance of complete documentation and learn the tools and techniques to perform efficient and accurate documentation.

2. Inconsistent Performance of Procedures

Shortcut: Without standardized procedure guidance, nurses might end up adopting a variety of different techniques when performing procedures, leading to inconsistencies in care as well as potential errors.

Remedy: The MedBridge Clinical Procedure Manual gives nurses fast, on-the-go access to standardized and expert-validated guidelines and procedures, ensuring that all nurses are on the same page with proper procedure protocols.

3. Neglecting Patient Education

Shortcut: Nurses might rush through patient education due to time constraints, leading to poorly informed patients who are less likely to adhere to care plans.

Remedy: Within the Clinical Procedure Manual, nurses can easily access high-quality, video-based patient education resources to help patients and caregivers better understand the patient’s condition and how to manage it between visits.

4. Improper Infection Control Practices

Shortcut: Nurses might be inconsistent about following infection control protocols, increasing the risk of infections. Common shortcuts include performing inadequate hand hygiene, reusing personal protective equipment (PPE), improperly disinfecting equipment, bypassing isolation protocols with infectious patients, not following strict aseptic techniques during wound care, and neglecting environmental cleaning.

Remedy: Training nurses on the latest infection control procedures with MedBridge’s high-quality, engaging Continuing Education and CHAP- and ACHC-accredited Compliance Training helps keep the proper protocols top of mind for busy nurses and reinforces your agency’s ongoing commitment to infection prevention.

5. Inconsistent Communication with the Interdisciplinary Team

Shortcut: Nurses might not consistently communicate patient updates with the rest of the healthcare team, leading to gaps in care.

Remedy: MedBridge’s expert-led soft skills training and comprehensive home health education help nurses understand the importance of team communication and provide clear, actionable strategies to improve it, ensuring cohesive patient care.

6. Putting Off Continuing Education

Shortcut: Busy nurses might put off taking continuing education courses due to the time commitment, leading to outdated knowledge and skills related to regulatory updates and the latest evidence-based best practices.

Remedy: MedBridge’s extensive ANCC-accredited library of engaging, video-based continuing education courses makes it easier for nurses to stay current with the most recent clinical guidelines.

7. Relying on YouTube or Other Unvetted Online Resources for Procedure Guidance

Shortcut: Without easy access to procedure guidance, nurses might turn to YouTube to look up how to perform a procedure or skill they haven’t performed in a while, which can lead to inconsistent and non-standardized practices.

Remedy: To ensure a high standard of care, it’s better to have a single reliable source of truth for clinical procedures that has been designed and vetted by experts in home health nursing. MedBridge’s Clinical Procedure Manual provides standardized, evidence-based guidelines that have been approved by an expert review board and are easy to access in the field. With Clinical Procedure Manual, agencies can be confident that procedures are performed consistently and correctly.

Supporting Nurses Is a Win-Win

Providing busy nurses with the resources they need to perform tasks as thoroughly and competently as possible is a win-win for everyone involved: Nurses, patients, and agencies. The tools featured here are part of In-Home Essentials, our comprehensive platform for home health agencies that supports nurses throughout their entire career journey to help ensure staff satisfaction and retention, high quality of care, and better patient outcomes.

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